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Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2008 > July > 27
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Give Ryan a chance
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Flowery Branch — I’m usually not one to offer advice to fans — to owners and general managers, yes; to the paying public, no — but I’m doing it now. I’m making a recommendation.
Give Matt Ryan a chance.
It’s not his fault Michael Vick isn’t here. It’s nobody’s fault but Vick’s. But there is, if we’re to believe ajc.com blogs, a hefty percentage of people who insist Ryan will never be Vick and was a joke of a draft pick to boot, and such hostility could do a long-term disservice to the team they claim to support.
“I’ll be the first to tell you I’m not Mike Vick,” Ryan said Sunday morning. “We have completely different styles of play … I’m just trying to be the best I can be.”
Ryan will never make some of the plays Vick made, but that’s not really a comparison: In the history of football, no other quarterback has made some of those plays. But Vick (stop me if you’ve heard this already) isn’t here, and the Falcons need a big-time quarterback. And nobody who has been around Ryan over the summer believes he isn’t big-time.
Said running back Michael Turner, who played alongside Drew Brees and Philip Rivers in San Diego: “I don’t see anything that makes you think [Ryan] can’t be [first-rate]. He’s executing the plays, taking command of the huddle, taking control of the offense … You’ve got to respect the quarterback. He’s the leader of the team, whether he wants to be or not.”
Ryan wants to be. The Falcons have a new $10,000 sound system in their locker room, courtesy of the rookie. It wasn’t something Ryan had to do, nor was it something he did for public consumption. (“I didn’t know that had leaked,” he said when asked about it.) But it’s the kind of thing that plays well, sonically and otherwise, with his teammates.
Some rookies who arrive toting a windfall contract would act as if the sun rises and sets on their rich young personages. Said receiver Brian Finneran, who was here before Vick arrived and is here still: “[Ryan has] done everything the opposite of that. He’s done everything the right way. He’s a pro.”
Ryan will be starting at some point this fall: Probably not the first game, but surely by Halloween. He will have lousy games. Rookie quarterbacks do. But the public needs to recall that not every Vick game was a masterpiece. He threw the occasional interception and took the more-than-occasional sack. And Vick, let’s recall, started only two games his first season.
But will the masses offer Ryan the benefit of any doubt? “They have to,” Finneran said. “He’s our quarterback now. But unless you’re in a city like Washington or Cleveland, the only way to get fans to fill your stadium is to win.”
Said Turner: “I don’t know if there’s a Michael Vick cloud over his head. You’d have to ask him.”
Said Ryan: “I can’t worry about that.”
Nothing that happens in camp will tell us how the new guy will be received by his new audience. That will come only with the first Dome games, the first overthrown interception, the first sack-and-fumble, the first few losses. But initial impressions can mislead: Troy Aikman, who wound up winning three Super Bowls, was 0-11 as a rookie starter.
Ryan might or might not turn out half as well as Aikman, but he has it within him to be good enough to make the Falcons win. That’s if he’s afforded the chance to grow, to fail, to learn how not to fail. And that’s what I’m asking of you folks out there:
Give him that chance. Give him the same chance you gave Michael Vick.
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